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Sunday, October 17, 2010

I'm in pain

Why? you probably wonder. Well. It started with the idea of meeting a friend who I met on authonomy. She's a rider who owns two horses. Silly me had the wonderful idea of going for a ride. Needless to say that I never had lessons, apart from one or two odd ones and that was about 15 years ago.So here we go, nicely and appropriately dressed, I turned up at the station, where she picked me up. I was already super excited to sit in a Land Rover and begged her to let me drive one day. She agreed, more or less reluctantly. But honestly, I'm a good driver.

At the yard, I got introduced to 'my' horse, Chesnut, according to my friend a lovely creature that looks after its novice riders. To be fair, he did. Bless him.When grooming and saddling was done I mounted under a lot of laughter, because I'm obviously not as bendy as I thought I'd be and off we went into the paddock in order to get a feeling again.

It's safe to say that I really had no chance to make Chesnut move, not one inch. Neither to the right nor left. He just followed my friend who had the exhausting job to run in front to get him into a trot. The steam, I will say, came more from her nostrils rather than from the horse's.When I felt fit enough, we decided to dip into the forest. I was nervous. What happened if he jumps or balks at something? I would sail inelegantly from his back. My friend went first and Chesnut trotted after him, which was good, no?I think he has quite a bit of humour since he preferred to walk right under the branches on the left hand side instead of walking where I could sit upright. So my job was ducking under the branches which was, taken into account I'm not familiar with sitting on a horse, quite funny. I laughed a lot and swore likewise.Once, I got nearly swept off as the branch was a little to strong for me. I managed just about to stay in the saddle.

How it was to sit on a horse after so long? What do you mean, I would ask back, sitting? I lay one the neck of the horse most of the time. The end of the ride was another hilarious moment and I wished there had been a camera. I hardly managed to get off him and my friend had to catch me, who slid down like a sack of potatoes.

It was great, I admit, the nature, the smells and the peace. Like a holiday. But today, two days after the ride, my muscles ache. A lot. I can't walk properly, but never mind. I will do it again.